Rafe Esquith is beginning his eighteenth year at Hobart Elementary School in Los Angeles. He is the product of the Los Angeles public schools and a graduate of UCLA. His many honors and awards include the 1992 Disney National Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award, a Sigma Beta Delta Fellowship from Johns Hopkins University, Parents Magazine’s As You Grow Award, Oprah Winfrey’s Use Your Life Award, and an MBE from Queen Elizabeth. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Barbara Tong.

Photo © 2002 Peter Thomas/Dunlap-Tierny

Year after year, Rafe Esquith’s fifth-grade students excel. They read passionately, far above their grade level; tackle algebra; and stage Shakespeare so professionally that they often wow the great Shakespearen actor himself, Sir Ian McKellen. Yet Esquith teaches at an L.A. innercity school known as the Jungle, where few of his... Read more